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Born on May 24 1819 Alexandrina Victoria was the only child of the fourth son of King George III: Edward, duke of Kent. Her mother was Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg, sister of King Leopold of the Belgians.

About Queen Victoria

Victoria became heiress-apparent of the British crown on the death of her uncle George IV, and when her uncle William IV died childless in 1837, she became Queen of Great Britain. She was crowned the next year. Her Era was the longest of all in the Royal History of Great Britain. She tested the limits of her royal powers when the government of Lord Melbourne, the Whig who had been her mentor, fell the next year. She refused to follow precedent and dismiss her ladies of the bedchamber so that the Tory government could replace them. Her refusal brought back the Whigs until 1841. The Queen’s first language was German. German was the language of her mother and governess. She also spoke English, French and Hindustani.

Marriage: She’d met her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when they were both seventeen. When they were twenty, he returned to England, and Victoria, in love with him, proposed marriage. They were married on February 10, 1840.Their first child, a daughter, was born in November 1840, and the Prince of Wales, Edward, in 1841. Three more sons and four more daughters followed. Victoria had traditional views on the role of the wife and mother, and though she was Queen and Albert was Prince Consort, he shared government responsibilities at least equally.

Indian Attraction: After the victory of British East India Company in the Revolt of 1857, She got the title of Empress of India which later on became the most popular title of Victorian Era. She was the first to use the title Empress of India. Queen Victoria had an affinity with India and all things Indian. This was probably why she took an instant liking to an Indian manservant Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim. Abdul Karim was from the Taj Mahal city Agra and had come to Victoria as a gift on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of her reign in 1887. He was to serve the queen as a waiter but soon this personable young man of 24. with suave manners became her special favorite. Victoria and Abdul Karim often talked in Urdu, foiling the attempts of those who would very much have liked to eavesdrop on what was going on between them. With the change in his status, came the change in Abdul Karim’s residence. The Queen moved him from the servants quarters, giving him cottages in the ground of royal palaces at Balmoral, Windsor and Osborne House. She assisted him in bringing his family to Britain where they lived at the royal expense. In 1878 Victoria had founded the Order of Indian Empire to honor people of outstanding merit who had served in India.

Widowhood: Death of Prince Albert in 1861 devastated her; her prolonged mourning lost her much popularity. Eventually coming out of seclusion, she maintained an active role in government until her death in 1901. Her reign was marked by waxing and waning popularity — and suspicions that she preferred the Germans a bit too much always diminished her popularity somewhat. By the time she had assumed the throne, the British monarchy was more figurehead and influence than it was a direct power in the government, and her long reign did little to change that.

Death: It was a winter time in Great Britain & every one was enjoying the first month of the New Year of 1901 when the entire British Empire was fallen into mourning & was paying homage to the Great Queen Victoria. On Tuesday 22nd January 1901 at 6:30pm at the age of 81 when the dusk was falling on the sky The angels of death were busy taking the soul of the Empress of India leading to an end of a Victorian Era & the rule of House of Hanover in the UK.The Queen was suffering fromRheumatism in her legs which had rendered her lame and her eyesight was bearing the shades of cataract. She was laid to rest in peace near the grave of her beloved husband Price Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park . Her Funeral was the only White Funeral where everyone was dressed in whites as requested by her.

Assassination Attempts: Five attempts were made to assassinate Queen Victoria during here lifetime which she survived with no serious injuries.

Legacy: Herself written Letters, Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands and More Leaves. Biographies of Victoria: Lytton Strachey’s Queen Victoria, are now considered out of date.The biographies written by Elizabeth Longford and Cecil Woodham-Smith, in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired. Victoria Memorial in Calcutta – India, Victoria Memorial – London, State of Victoria in Australia & Victoria Waterfalls in Africa are named after her.

Children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert:

Victoria: Princess Royal, married Frederick III of Germany and mother to Kaiser Wilhelm

Albert Edward: Prince of Wales, later king as Edward VII

Alice: married the Duke of Hesse

Alfred: Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Helena: married Prince Kristian of Schleswig-Holstein

Louise: married the Marquis of Lorne

Arthur: Duke of Connaught

Leopold: Duke of Albany

Beatrice: married Prince Henry of Battenber

Also read about Victoria’s Life with Prince Albert in our blog on Prince Albert

Yusufzais are one of the largest Pashtun tribes. The majority of the Yusufzai tribe resides in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. And now sindh as URDU speaking. They are the predominant population in the districts of Dir, Swat, Mardan, Malakand,Swabi, Buner, Shangla and in Mansehra and Battagram, they are known as Sawati. Other Yusufzai colonies can be found in the inner city of Sialkot and Lahore, arriving in the 13th century. There is also a Yusufzai clan of Dehwar tribe in the Mastung district of Balochistan who speak Persian with some mixture of Birahvi words. The name Yusafzai originates from Yusuf who was the younger son of Manday along with his elder brother Omar. Both died young and left behind only one son Mandanh. The descendants of Yusuf inhabit Swat, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, and Malakand while the descendants of Mandanh live in Swabi and Mardan. The closest neighboring trive to the Yusufzai’s are the Alizai. Yusafzai speak the northern variant of “Pukhtu” with the hard “kh” replacing the softer “sh” of southern Pashtun tribes.

History: They migrated from Kandhaar when Mirza Ulugh Beg was governor. He succeeded his father, Shah Rukh, who was a son of Timur (Taimur-e-Lang), in 1446 A.D. In the time of Babur, who first came to Kabul in 1504 A.D., Peshawar had been colonized by Afghan tribes, such as the Swatis and Dilazaks. On his second visit, fourteen years later, he found the Yusufzais had spread into Swat. The current settlement of the Yusufzais must have come about after this time.

The Yusufzai took much of their current lands from the Afghan Dilazaks and Swatis, after a single decisive battle fought on the plains between the villages of Gadar and Langarkot. Babur helped subdue the tribes fighting the Yususfzais, using matchlocks for the first time against the Jahangiri sultan, Mir Haider Ali Gebri of Bajour. In previous battles the armies of Babur where never able to defeat the Yusufzai. In one instance Babur sent an army of 100,000 against the Yusufzai with elephants only to have the entire army almost completely routed.

Wars & Notable Personalities:

The Yusufzai tribe came to Swat in approximately 1450 and began fighting with the Pushtun tribes of Afridi, Swati and Dilazak. After several bloody battles between the Tanolis and the Yūsufzai, Tanoli Sultan Ameer Khan was killed while fighting with the Yūsufzai at Topi (near Swabi). The Tanolis were pushed to the eastern bank of the Indus. The Yusufzai tribes ruled northern India for centuries. The British army tried to take control of the Yusufzai parts of northern India but were defeated. The Yusufzai have fought the British in the 18th and 19th century, especially the clans of Swat and Black Mountain of Hazara. The battle of Ambela, Sura took place in 1863. Bakht Khan Rohilla (1797–1859) was the nominal Commandar-in-chief of Indian rebel forces in the Indian Rebellian of 1857 against the British East India Company. He too was a Yusufzai.

Demography: Three sections of the tribe, the Hassanzai, Akazai and Chagharzai, inhabit the west slopes of the Black Mountain, and the Yusufzai country stretches to the Utman Khel territory. The population demographics of Yusufzais is unknown but there are more than 3 million Pashtu speaking Yusufzais. The main districts of Yousafzais are Mardan,Malakand, Swabi and Dargai. The large populations of this tribe are also found in Northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Small proportions in Burma, Nepal.